Freedom of Information Act 2000 Request

The amount of cases of Female Genital Mutilations referred to the CPS since April 2012, and a breakdown of the details.

Request

I would like to know the number of cases of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) referred to the CPS since April 2012 by police.

For each case:

i) the age of the victim ii) the date of the referral iii) The name of the police force which made the referral iv) Whether action was taken - i.e. the case was brought to trial

Response

By ‘number of cases referred’ we understand you to mean the number of cases referred by police to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for a charging decision.

The CPS does not record the nature of the alleged offence(s) in which a charging decision has been sought.

In order for us to establish the number of pre-charge advice cases which refer to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) it would be necessary to examine all referrals for a charging decision made since the date requested. As an indication of the work this would involve there were a total of 273,723 referrals for a charging decision made during the last financial year (2017-18) alone.

Section 12(1) of the FOI Act means public authorities are not obliged to comply with a request for information if it estimates the cost of complying would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit for central government it is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days determining whether the department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information. We believe that the cost of reviewing in excess of 273,723 referrals for a charging decision and obtaining the information you have requested would exceed the appropriate limit. Consequently, we are not obliged to comply with your request.

The CPS does record the number of cases involving FGM in which a decision has been made to charge. This data can be requested via a new Freedom of Information request however the data will remain subject to any FOIA exemptions.

Information Management Unit 020 3357 0899 IMU@cps.gov.uk